[Excerpt from Special Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities Hearings, vol. I, pp. 582-583, 1938]

THE AMERICAN STUDENT UNION

(National headquarters: 112 East Nineteenth Street, New York City)

The membership of the American Student Union is approximately 30,000. It is a section of the World Student Union, now the World Student Association for Peace, Freedom, and Culutre. Its organ is the Student Advocate.

The American section (World Student Association for Peace, Freedom, and Culture) was organized at a joint meeting of the (Communist) National Student League and the (Socialist) Student League for Industrial Democracy, held in the Young Women's Christian Association at Columbus, Ohio, December 28-29, 138. Their report of this congress stated that nearly 500 delegates from 113 schools and colleges in the United States were present. The Communist unit had inveigled the Socialist youth into participating in the congress, usurped the leadership of the organization, and have used it as an adjunct to the young Communist movement all during its short life.

The program first adopted by the American Student Union advocated the right to education and security; in defense of academic freedom, peace, protection of minority races, and a struggle against the oligarchy of high finance, industry, and politics. It immediately set out to fight the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, Civilian Conservation Corps, and national defense. It supported an effort for youth relief appropriations. At first the movement adopted a pledge to refuse to defend the United States Government in any war (defensive or aggressive), but as soon as Spain and China became involved in warfare, they rescinded this action and sent some of their members to the "red" front.

In a report to Moscow, the Communists refer to the American Student Union as one of its greatest triumphs in the United States. Joseph P. Lash was made national secretary of the organization. Lash has since resigned from the Young Socialist Party League, stating that it was too tame. He has become active in many other Communist-influenced movements. George Clifton Edwards, Jr., was named national chariman, and Serril Gerber, executive secretary. The National Board of the Union included:

Bruce Bliven, Jr., Jeffrey Campbell, Lewis Cohen, James Cox, Harold Draper, Frances Franklin, Maurice Gates, Albert W. Hamilton, Alvaine Hollister, Leo Kontouzos, Martz Lewis, Harold Lebros, Virginia McGregor, Katherine Meyer, Walter Relis, Dorothy Rockwell, Warber Shippe, Julius Sippin, Hamilton Tyler, Monroe Sweetland.

These came from Ohio State University, Los Angeles Junior College, Southern Methodist, Columbia University, Swarthmore, Harvard, University of Louisville, University of Virginia, Antioch College, St. Lawrence University, Young Men's Christian Association College of Chicago, Depaw, Temple, Vassar, Oregon University, University of Chicago, University of Minnesota, Brooklyn College, Occidental, and other prominent schools.

An advisory board was set up which included:

Roger Baldwin, Prof. George Counts, Mary Fox, Francis Gorman, Louis Hacker, Norman Thomas, Reinhold Niebuhr, Prof. Robert Morss Lovett, Quincy Howe, Julius Hochman, Freda Kirchway, Prof. Alexander Meiklejohn, Prof. Goodwin Watson.

The immediate action of the American Student Union was to launch student strikes throughout the Nation on April 22 of each year. It claims to have influenced around 500,000 to walk out on this date each year in the United States. It has sections in nearly every college and university in the country and in many of our high schools.

The following are officers which were elected at the December 1937 congress of the American Student Union:

Robert E. Lane (Harvard), president.

Joseph P. Lash (City College, N. Y.), executive secretary.

Molly Yard (Swarthmore), organizational secretary.

Lloyd James (University of Chicago), director of publications.

Agnes Reynolds (Vassar), treasurer.

Britton Harris (Wesleyan), assistant treasurer.

District secretaries: Kenneth Born (University of Kansas), Chicago; Howard Lee (College of Ozarks), South; Louis Burnham (City College, New York), South.

National executive commtitee: Kenneth Born (University of Kansas); Ruth Brodie (Carnegie Tech); Robert Buckles (Purdue); Pack Chasson (University of Los Angeles); Clifton Davenport (Wesleyan); Tony Groso (Smith); Robert Huffcut (Cornell); Lloyd James (University of Chicago); Frances Estelle Jones (Bennett); Robert E. Lane (Harvard); Joseph P. Lash (City College, New York); Manuel Manfield (City College, New York); Florence Myers (Wayne University); Agnes Reynolds (Vassar); Sol Rosner (Temple); Al Rubio (Unversity of Illinois); Charlotte Russell (Hunter); Boone Schirmer (Harvard); Katherine Scudder (Vassar); Oliver Stone (Wesleyan); Celeste Strack (University of California at Los Angeles); Mary Symons (Oberlin); Herbert Witt (New York University); Florence Yard (Swarthmore); Molly Yard (Swarthmore).

High school: Nolan Bell (Central High, Cleveland); Cornelia Brangman (Wadleigh High, New York); Evelyn Elkin (Central High, Detroit); Leon Wofsie (New Haven High).

The American Student Union has cooperated directly with other Communist movements in many avenues in the United States. Its last convention was held at Vassar College, December 27-31, 1937, at which time it took on a direct political tinge by resolution. The union also resolved to boycott Japan and to help the Spanish and Chinese "red" fronts. It especially favors the Nye-Kvale bills to abolish military training in school and colleges. It passed a resolution euologizing some of its members fighting on the Spanish "red" front. George Watt and Paul MacEachron are among those fighting in Spain. The union upheld the Mexicon confiscation of American properties; it denounced American interference in Puerto Rico and the arrest of revolutionists there, demanding their release; it endorsed the World Youth Congress, to be held at Vassar in August 1938; it urged the liberation of the Communist, Luis Carlos Prestes, now held by officials in Brazil; it urged the passage of the antilynching bill; the abolition of poll tax; it supported the Harrison-Black bills, the Southern Negro Congress, the Scottsboro Negroes. The union adopted resolutions opposing theater owners banning Negroes in movie houses of the South. It ordered its members to cooperate in labor struggles. It endorsed the CIO and the sharecropper movement in the South; it endorsed cooperative and consumer movements (with Charles Saphirstein in charge of this work). It denounced the jailing of labor agitators, and criticized colleges and universities expelling students and discharging professors for radical activities.

The American Student Union set up the United Student Peace Committee in 1938, through which it has a wider range in organizing strikes in American schools. Molly Yard is organizational secretary of this committee. Through it they claim to have influenced 17 national youth movements to become affiliated with it. These include the International Intercollegiate Christian Council (Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Association student councils), the American Youth Congress, the American League for Peace and Democracy, the Committee on Militarism in Education, the Emergency Peace Campaign, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Joint Committee on United Christian Youth Movement, League of Nations Association, National Council of Methodist Youth, War Resisters' League, National Student Federation, Student Department-Foreign Policy Association.

On March 24 the American Studen Union called a strike, at which time, according to the Daily Worker, March 22, 1938, page 5, it called on Secretary of State Hull to follow the Soviet peace policy against the fascist aggressor. Of course, that policy was to supply money, men, and arms to the "red" fronts, thereby injecting the country into the fracas. The organization then took up support of the Jerry O'Connell peace amendment.

Senator GILLETTE. Mr. Chairman.

JESSUP'S ACTIONS AS MEMBER OF FACULTY ADVISORY BOARD

Senator SPARKMAN. Senator Gillette?

Senator GILLETTE. Dr. Jessup, we were discussing this morning these other three organizations, where your name was carried as a sponsor or in some other connection with them, and as I recall, you stated that you knew nothing about it, or were not advised that your name was on it. This is an organization in which you knew your name was carried.

Ambassador JESSUP. That is correct.

Senator GILLETTE. And you authorized it.

Ambassador JESSUP. Yes, sir.

Senator GILLETTE. But you do not recall what time or for what period of time it was so carried?

Ambassador JESSUP. No, sir. I assume, and from my records it would be indicated, that it was carried from about 1937 to 1940.

Senator GILLETTE. It is carried as a faculty advisory board member. What were your duties as a member of the faculty advisory board?

Ambassador JESSUP. So far as I am able to recall, Senator, they consulted me perhaps twice. I think one consultation, perhaps both of them, had to do with these annual meetings. I am sure that one of them was to ask whether I would speak at this meeting in 1940 along with Judge Pecora and Mr. Epstein, and I agreed, and I rather assume, although I have no definite indication on it, that the other was in connection with getting up their program for the 1938 meeting. There may have been incidental contacts in between. I have no record or recollection of them.

Senator GILLETTE. Do you have any recollection that your association or your position as faculty advisor had anything to do with formulating the policies or activities of this group?

Ambassador JESSUP. I think not, sir.

Senator GILLETTE. You are convinced not?
Ambassador JESSUP. Yes, sir.

Senator GILLETTE. And I also understood you to say that so far as you know, although you cannot fix the exact time of your membership on this board, during that period there was no information that reached you of any association or connection of this organization with Communist groups or Communist-front groups?

Ambassador JESSUP. That is correct, sir.

Senator GILLETTE. And your plea then, is one of confession and avoidance, that you belonged to the organization but disclaim responsibility?

Ambassador JESSUP. A little more than that, if I may, Senator; that I was connected with the organization but find no evidence that it was subversive or known to be subversive in the years in which I was connected with it.

Senator GILLETTE. During the time that you were connected with it?

Ambassador JESSUP. That is correct.

Senator SPARK MAN. I understand you go further in your brief. You are not convinced that even yet it was ever cited as a subversive organization.

Ambassador JESSUP. That is quite correct, Senator, but the point I was confining myself to was the question that is important to me, it seems to me, in any of these charges, which is, what was the nature of it when I was connected with it? So far as I can find from this evidence, it is very doubtful whether it was directly cited as a Communist front or Communist organization at any particular time.

Senator SPARK MAN. I may say that I called to the attention of Senator McCarthy yesterday that it is not listed in the guide that is put out by the Un-American Activities Committee.

Ambassador JESSUP. Is that the cumulative one of 1951, sir?

Senator SPARKMAN. That is correct. It is not listed in that. In appendix 9, where it is named, I have found nothing to accompany it except simply a listing. I called the committee's attention to that the other day.

Ambassador JESSUP. Correct.

Senator GILLETTE. Just one other question: And the fact, Dr. Jessup, that you cited other important persons who belonged or who were on this advisory board at the same time you were on, those facts, were merely cited by you as cumulative evidence or additional evidence of your belief that it had no connection with Communist policies at that time?

Ambassador JESSUP. That is correct, sir. I do not believe that the gentlemen indicated would have sent greetings and congratulations and welcomes, and so forth, to this organization in 1938 if it had been any kind of a Communist organization.

Senator GILLETTE. And based on that you also reach the conclusion that you would not have belonged to it?

Ambassador JESSUP. I agree to that.

Senator GILLETTE. Just because of the fact that these gentlemen belonged to it?

Ambassador JESSUP. That is further cumulative evidence.
Senator SPARKMAN. Are there any further questions?

Go ahead with the next.

CHINA AID COUNCIL

Ambassador JESSUP. Mr. Chairman, we now pass to what Senator McCarthy called "Communist Front No. 5," the China Aid Council, beginning at page 8 of his collection.

Senator McCarthy here returns to a charge which he had included in some earlier attacks on me, and which he then dropped for a time. But he has brought it up again in these pages 8, 9, and 10 of the document which he submitted to this committee.

The inclusion of the China Aid Council here I can only interpret as an attempt to strike at me through my wife. I personally was never an official or a member of the China Aid Council, nor have I had individual connection with it. However, in the normal course of events the China Aid Council, for very obvious reasons it seems to me, was interested in far eastern problems, which also concerned the Institute of Pacific Relations, in which I was active for a time.

This was the extent of my own relationship with the organization, and can hardly be counted either an affirmation or any affinity within the meaning of the charges made by the Senator from Wisconsin.

Now, Mr. Chairman, Senator McCarthy has seen fit to bring in my wife's name, and since he has done that I believe that simple justice requires that I supply sufficient details about her connection, such as it was, with the China Aid Council.

I appreciate that Senator Fulbright, I am sure with the best intentions, raised some question in the hearings the other day as to whether a man is responsible for his wife's actions. I would like to say in that connection, Mr. Chairman, that I am not here as an apologist for Mrs. Jessup. I am very proud of her record, and I want to put it in here, since her name has been brought in in this way, and the question of her affiliation and her activities therefor become relevant to these hearings.

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I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that I think this evidence which I am going to put in, some of which I have acquired subsequent to preparing this statement and which is not included in my prepared statement, puts a very different complexion on her activities from the inference that the Senator from Wisconsin attempted to draw.

AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR CHINESE WAR ORPHANS

Mrs. Jessup's appearance on the list of the board of directors, as appears in Senator McCarthy's photostat on page 8, comes, as I think was brought out in the hearings, from her work on the American Committee for Chinese War Orphans, which also appears on the letterhead. It is "The China Aid Council Combined With the American Committee for Chinese War Orphans."

Mrs. Jessup joined this Committee for War Orphans in 1938. This committee was under the sponsorship of Madam Chiang Kai-shek. I believe some question was raised as to whether there was any documentary evidence about the activities of this organization. References were made to an article in the Ladies Home Journal, but in addition to that, which I offer for the record if it is not already in——

Senator SPARKMAN. Part of it was read into the record yesterday. Ambassador JESSUP. I have also photostats of some pamphlets which were gotten out with regard to this business of selling tea, the profits being sent to Madam Chiang Kai-shek for Chinese war orphans. In one of these, in connection with this tea committee, the committee will see that Mrs. Philip C. Jessup is listed as chairman of this tea committee for raising money for Madam Chiang Kai-shek.

The committee got up a special kind of tea and they named it after Madam Chiang, "May Ling." They called it "May Ling Tea," and the profits, as I have told you, were devoted to these orphanages which Madam Chiang Kai-shek and her sisters were maintaining in China. Senator BREWSTER. Was this an instance when the sisters were cooperating?

Ambassador JESSUP. The sisters were cooperating at this time; yes, sir. Later they split.

Senator BREWSTER. One of the sisters has always been very sympathetic with the Communist cause.

Ambassador JESSUP. Whether always I do not know, sir. I suppose you refer to Madam Sun Yat Sen ?

Senator BREWSTER. Yes.

Ambassador JESSUP. She, I believe, was on the Kuomintang executive committee, or central committee, for some years, I think at this period. As I understand it now, she is over with the Chinese Communists. At this period I understand there was collaboration or full cooperation among the three Soong sisters.

This article in the Ladies Home Journal shows them together here in connection with their orphanage activity.

Senator BREWSTER. What is the date of that?

Ambassador JESSUP. The date of the Ladies Home Journal article is May 1941.

Senator BREWSTER. In 1943 they had certainly split wide open when I was in Chungking. They weren't on speaking terms at that time. Ambassador JESSUP. That is subsequent to the period when Mrs. Jessup was helping them out.